// alternatives · October 2026
o3 Pro alternatives
Cheaper models that come close, budget substitutes, and the cheapest step up — chosen on published LiveBench scores and live list price, never on our opinion. Every model here supports tool calling and image input, as o3 Pro does.
LiveBench hasn't published a run for o3 Pro. The strongest benchmarked model at a similar or lower price is Claude Fable 5.1, scoring 85.7 overall.
o3 Pro: no published LiveBench run, $35.00 per 1M blended tokens, about $20,800/mo for a RAG assistant.
Benchmarked models at or below its price
o3 Pro has no published LiveBench run, so these are the highest-scoring benchmarked models priced no more than 25% above it — a known quantity to test against.
| Model | Overall | vs o3 Pro | Blended / 1M | RAG assistant | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Fable 5.1anthropic 43% cheaper. Head to head → | 85.7 | — | $20.00−43% | $7,100/mo | 1M |
| GPT-6 Astraopenai 43% cheaper. Head to head → | 85.6 | — | $20.00−43% | $7,400/mo | 1.1M |
| Claude Opus 5.5anthropic 77% cheaper. Head to head → | 85.1 | — | $8.00−77% | $2,880/mo | 1M |
| GPT-6.1 Solopenai 89% cheaper. Head to head → | 84.1 | — | $4.00−89% | $1,440/mo | 1.1M |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5anthropic 89% cheaper. Head to head → | 80.0 | — | $4.00−89% | $1,440/mo | 1M |
| Gemini 4 Argongoogle 89% cheaper. Head to head → | 79.3 | — | $4.00−89% | $1,440/mo | 1.0M |
o3 Pro alternatives FAQ
What is the best alternative to o3 Pro?
Claude Fable 5.1. 43% cheaper. Every suggestion supports tool calling and image input, like o3 Pro.
How alternatives are chosen
- Scores — LiveBench release 2026-10-25. Only models with a published run are suggested on quality; a missing model means “not evaluated”, not “worse”.
- Prices — live list prices from OpenRouter, blended 3:1 input:output. Monthly figures price a RAG assistant with the published cached-input rate where there is one.
- Same job — suggestions must support every capability o3 Pro has among tool calling and image input. Other listings of the same model (free or batch tiers) are variants, not alternatives, and are left out.
A few points on a public benchmark can hide large differences on your own tasks. Shortlist here, then decide with an eval — how to build one.